Portable wireless communication devices, such as pagers, personal digital assistants (“PDAs”), cell phones, wireless handheld devices, handheld computers and other portable wireless communication devices, referred to herein collectively as “Mobile Devices,” have become increasingly popular within the last decade. Mobile Devices variously permit users to send and receive email, text messages, instant messages and documents, and to make and receive wireless telephone calls. As this technology evolves, Mobile Devices are being developed that perform all of these functions. For example, cell phones are now available that may be used not only to make and receive telephone calls, but also to send and receive email and text messages, browse the Internet, and perform other PDA tasks. Additionally, PDAs also now are available that include email, text messaging, Web browsing and wireless telephone functionality.
Most Mobile Devices now typically include some form of advanced non-speech service, such as short message service (“SMS”), multimedia message service (“MMS”) or other asynchronous data alert message service. SMS is a subscriber service that operates similar to pager service. With SMS, a Mobile Device user may receive and transmit “short” text messages without establishing a voice circuit connection. These short text messages typically are limited to about 160 alphanumeric characters, and are transmitted on a control channel typically separate from the band used for voice transmission. MMS is a relatively new subscriber service that is similar to SMS, but permits communication of longer text messages, plus images, audio and video. Unless otherwise stated, SMS, MMS, and other asynchronous data alert message services will be collectively referred to herein by the acronym “SMS services.” In addition, the term “SMS messages” is used herein to refer to any message communicated via an SMS, MMS, or other similar asynchronous data alert message service. Thus, SMS messages may include text data, image data, audio data, video data, and any other data that may be communicated via an asynchronous data alert message service. SMS services may be provided between Mobile Device users on the same cellular network or on different cellular networks, and between content providers and mobile device users via a network gateway.
A content provider may use SMS messaging to send targeted SMS messages to specific mobile device users. For example, a news service may use SMS messaging to provide subscribers with periodic highlights of news related to selected subject areas, such as sports, finance, world events, or other selected subject areas. Alternatively, a manufacturing company may use SMS messaging to inform its sales force of updated product pricing information. In addition, an investment advisory service may use SMS messaging to provide its clients with updated investment advice regarding particular securities.
In each of these examples, a mobile device user may receive an SMS message and then desire additional content related to the message. As used herein, content refers to documents, images, audio, video, text and any other similar information that may be represented and stored in digital form. For example, a mobile device user may receive an SMS message from an investment advisor regarding a particular company, and then wish to read a prospectus about the company. Such a prospectus may be quite lengthy, and may be impractical to view on the mobile device. Alternatively, the user may receive an SMS message from a realtor regarding a particular property, and may wish to see an image or series of images of the property. The user's mobile device, however, may not be able to display the image with sufficient clarity. In both instances, the mobile device user may simply prefer to obtain a hardcopy print of the prospectus or images. Further, depending on the nature of the content, the content provider may not want to transfer a copy of the content to mobile device user, and may want to limit the number of copies that the mobile device user may make of the content.
Previously known techniques for printing documents from a Mobile Device, however, typically have been limited to printing documents displayed on or stored on the Mobile Device. For example, Ishizuka U.S. Patent Publication No. US 2002/0065873 A1 (“Ishizuka”) describes methods and systems for printing from a wireless Mobile Device via the Internet. Ishizuka's methods are limited to printing documents stored or displayed on a mobile device, and are limited to printing documents to a user's default printer (which may be located far from the user at the time the user desires to print the document), or at an alternate printer (which requires that the user provide the network address for the printer). A mobile user may not know the network address of a local printer, or there may simply be no network printer readily accessible to the user. Moreover, many Mobile Devices lack the ability to display or store many type of documents that a user may wish to view and print. For example, a document may be too large to store locally on a Mobile Device. Even if the Mobile Device may be able to store the document, the Mobile Device may lack software needed to view and print the document.
Many other previously known techniques for printing documents from a Mobile Device require that the Mobile Device connect to a printer via a cable or wireless link (e.g., via an infrared link). This is disadvantageous, however, because a mobile user may not have a printer cable that is compatible with a local printer, or may not have a Mobile Device that can communicate via a wireless link to a local printer. Also, the local printer may not include technology for receiving print jobs via wireless communications.
In view of the foregoing, it would be desirable to provide methods and apparatus that permit a content provider to send SMS messages to a Mobile Device user, and then permit the Mobile Device user to print content related to the received messages.
It also would be desirable to provide methods and apparatus that permit Mobile Device users to print content related to received SMS messages without requiring a copy of the content on the Mobile Device.
It additionally would be desirable to provide methods and apparatus that permit a Mobile Device user to print content related to received SMS messages without needing special software on the Mobile Device to view and print the content.
It further would be desirable to provide methods and apparatus that permit a Mobile Device user to print content related to received SMS messages at a printer, without requiring that the user know in advance an address for the printer.
It also would be desirable to provide methods and apparatus that permit a Mobile Device user to print content related to a received SMS message to a printer, without requiring that the user know a network address of the printer.